Customer Reviews

Cro-Magnon: How the Ice Age Gave Birth to the First Modern Humans

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Brian Fagan is one of my favorite authors. I was first introduced to his books in college. They were the text books in the prehistory courses I took for my major in archeology. More recently, he has been writing about the effects of climate change on human history. He has a talent for writing about complex subjects like climate change so that they are comprehensible for the lay reader without "dumbing down" the material.

With his most recent book, he has returned to the subject of prehistory with a comprehensive overview of the first anatomically modern humans, who he refers to as "Cro- Magnon" after the rock shelter where the first remains were discovered. Cro-Magnons are best known as the people who created the magnificent cave paintings in Europe.

When Cro-Magnons migrated into Europe from the Near East, it was already inhabited by the Neanderthals, relatives but not direct ancestors. Dr. Fagan refers to the Neanderthals as the "Quiet People" because they lacked fluent speech. They also lacked symbolism, religion, art and innovation. Their way of life was unchanged for hundreds of thousands of years. Unable to compete with their more advanced cousins, the Cro-Magnons, the Neanderthals gradually died out.

The Ice Age was not uniformly cold. There were periods of warmth when vegetation and animal populations changed. The Cro-Magnons were experts at adapting to the changing conditions, hunting large game when it was cold and smaller game when it was warm. The tools they left behind reflect the constant innovations that made them so successful. Their art, musical instruments and burials reveal their rich spiritual life.

The Cro-Magnons spread out all over Europe, hunting, foraging, constantly adapting to changing conditions for tens of thousands of years until the next wave of migration swept into Europe: farmers from the Near East. Did the Cro-Magnons die out like the Neanderthals before them? DNA tells us no. 85% of Europeans are direct descendants of Cro-Magnons.

"Cro-Magnon" offers the latest theories developed from hundreds of years of archeology devoted to European prehistory. The information is presented in a very readable form. No prior knowledge is needed by the reader. All specialized terms are explained. Brian Fagan has done it again, taken a vast and complicated subject and produced a book that is both educational and engaging.

In Cro-Magnon, Brian Fagan delivers the current state-of-knowledge regarding our stone-age selves and summarizes archeological evidence to date. As someone with a casual interest the subject, I might read up on it every 10 years or so; watching a handful of documentaries in the meantime. Fagan collects the various wealth of scientific knowledge, and distills it for mass consumption.

So what's new with the old? For starters, better dating techniques and mitochondrial DNA analysis has improved our understanding of the timeline. The Cro-Magnon (and focus of this book) are the ancestors of modern Europeans, and the book begins with their co-habitation with the neanderthal before moving into a series of eras defining differences in Cro-Magnon cultures. Fagan intersperses analysis of the current evidence with tales describing what he imagines daily life to be in a certain place and time. Much of this is speculation, and on problem with the book is that historic record is very fragmented and only very durable (ie, stone) artifacts remain. Make no mistake, the author does make some very good educated guesses that fit with the evidence at hand, but still, there is an awful lot of conjecture, and parts of the story are bound to change over time. In the end, I was less interested in the speculation and more interested in the significance of actual evidence.

There were a few editorial problems with the book worthy of note -- most having to do with captions of illustrations and references to them in the text. Some compound illustrations, for example, were lettered but the caption neither explained all of the letters, nor were always in sync with what the letter actually represented.

Brian Fagan deliberately uses the term "Cro-Magnon" even though it is out of current academic fashion, but it is widely and immediately recognized as meaning those anatomically modern humans who came into Europe 40000-plus years ago to eventually supplant the Neanderthal population already there and become, genetically speaking, the ancestors of modern Europeans. The author thoroughly grounds his narrative in the fruits of archaeological studies, although a good deal of well-informed speculation is necessary where the archaeological record is nonexistent. Much of this speculation derives from close observations made of comparitively modern hunter-gatherer peoples, especially Inuits who faced many of the same climatic challenges met by the Cro-Magnons.

Fagan typically begins each chapter with a vignette highlighting particular characteristics of life at some particular period, as circumstances changed and cultures evolved. The author does not neglect the Neanderthals, and a large part of the book examines how and why the Cro-Magnons came to replace them throughout Europe. Fagan is careful to avoid traditional negative stereotypes concerning the Neanderthals and presents them as intelligent, agile, adaptable people, but whose mental processes ultimately could not match those of Cro-Magnons, whose skills at innovation proved superior at adapting to changing environmental conditions.

For the most part Fagan sidesteps the perennial question of whether Neanderthals and Cro-Magnons interbred, but it is plain that the author considers any genetic contribution from the earlier humans to modern Europeans to be inconsequential (if any exists at all). And he quite plainly rejects any scenario of major violent interaction between Neanderthals and Cro-Magnons. Rather, he favors the idea that in the long run, the Neanderthal population could not successfully compete for resources and faded away.

Perhaps the best portions of the book are where Fagan explores the making and meaning of art (especially those wondrous cave paintings) to the Cro-Magnons.

When rock bands sign contracts with a recording company it is usually for an average of 3 to 5 albums. Unavoidably, the creative juices start to dry up and bands puts out a live album to fulfill their contractual obligations. This book is Brian Fagan's "live album" it is simply devoid of intellectual spark. It feels like an undergraduate thesis where the Paleolithic status quo is rehashed without any critique. Adding to the insult, Fagan interjects annoying romantic scenarios throughout the chapters worthy of children's books or cute museum dioramas. One only needs to look at the labeling and layout errors of the figures to realize that it was not properly proofed and was simply slapped together expediently by Bloomsbury Press. I ordered this book with Clive Finlayson's "The Humans who went Extinct". I'm half way through it as I write this and can tell you that it is one of the best popular books on the subject (although more figures would have been welcomed). Compared to Fagan, Finlayson presents more data, presents alternative interpretations and scenarios, is not concerned with current paradigm-correctness, and restrains from sugary artistic license when it comes to describing our ancestors. Had I read Finlayson's book first, I would not have been able to finish Fagan's due to its infantile tone.

Brian Fagan gets half of his history of humans in the Ice Age right. He gives an excellent synopsis of paleolithic homo sapiens and their response to extremes of climate change. The book is well researched and referenced. The vivid tale brings 35,000 years of Cro-Magnon history to life.
Suprisingly his description of Homo neanderthalensis is primarily conjecture. Fagan gives a hurried synopsis of Neanderthals, whom he feels were inconsequential. The "Quiet people" lacked innovation and speech he proclaims. This portion has less references. Oddly these frequently contradict Fagan's opinions.
Cro-Magnon's higher cognitive skills made it impossible for Neanderthals to compete. Contact between the human species was minimal. Neanderthals eventually dwindled into extinction, ending with a whimper not a bang.
It seems that there is more to the story than Fagan describes. When Neanderthals and Cro-Magnons first had contact in palestine 80,000 years ago the Neanderthals prevailed. It wasn't until after a second Cro-Magnon migration 50,000 years ago that Neanderthals began their 10,000 year slow extinction.
How Cro-Magnons acquired superior cognitive skills is a big question. One theory that Fagan agrees with is that in the aftermath of the Mega-Volcano Toba's eruption 70,000 years ago homo sapiens were threatened with extinction. With this population bottleneck they evolved higher cognitive skills.
Fagan states, "The genes of the Cro-Magnons are still dominant among Europeans today. My DNA tells me that genetically I'm one of them, and I'm proud of it."
Subsequent to the books publication Green, et al published "A draft sequence of the Neandertal Genome" in the May 6, 2010 edition of Science. Up to 4% of modern homo sapiens genes come from Homo neanderthalensis.
As Gregory Cochran and Henry Harpending describe in their book "The 10,000 Year Explosion, how civilization accelerated human evolution," there has been significant evolution of humans in the past 50,000 years. Neutral gene variants or alleles from Neanderthals would be rare and randomly disappeared with time. Neanderthal alleles with negative consequences would have disappeared even more rapidly. But some gene variants provide biological advantages and are adaptive. If that allele survives to reach 50 or 100 copies it is very unlikely to disappear and will eventually become universal.
Perhaps the addition of Neanderthal genes to Cro-Magnons had a biological advantage that aided the development of superior cognitive skills of modern man.
I hope Brian Fagan someday is as proud of his Neanderthal genes as he is of his Cro-Magnons.

This my second Fagan book. The first one about the medieval warming period captivated me at first, as this one did, but then he goes all novelistic and speculative. He's a good writer altho he repeats his pet phrases endlessly ('thin on the ground' is one of them). When Fagan is writing about 100,000 years ago, or 30,000 years ago, it irritates me no end to read something like "And it was a bitterly cold wind. We huddled in our group inside the cave and chanted together. Tomorrow we would search for a lone juvenile or a trailing aged bison to trap. Then our hunger would be assuaged." and so on. I made up those sentences but that is exactly what he does. I do not want to read a novel. I do not want guesses and invention.

I can see why he has an audience. His books (based on the two I read) are lively, interesting, and I don't think anyone else out of the professorial-researcher loop writes popular science about paleoclimatology. I would rather read a slim volume of say, 100 pages, complete with maps, charts and references than 250 pages of padding and imagined scenarios. If he were giving a talk in my town, I would definitely go. I'd expect a lively and engaging hour. Robert Sapolsky has a reputation for hilarious lectures on serious subjects (The Primate's Memoir for ex) and he's a biologist-neuroscientist from Stanford with brilliant credentials. But he does not let his imagination run wild.

Probably no one will get all the way down the list to read this review but the book that really blew me away and which I will buy and reread when it comes out in paperback in a few months is The Humans who Went Extinct by Clive Finlayson.

Fagan has carved out a niche. He introduces this utterly fascinating world of paleoclimatology and the peoples who inhabited the planet 200,000 years ago up until 45,000 when the first anatomically modern humans spread out from Africa. I just can't abide the words in their mouths, thoughts in their heads style. Might as well have talk balloons over their heads and artists' fanciful renderings complete with nature sounds in the background.

It would be uncharitable not to rate this book a "5". Fagan is very learned, is famailiar with the literature and the facts on the ground, is a noted anthropologist, and has a lively and lucid writing style. Because the book is so good, it is worth engaging, and engage one of its major theses I will.

This book might better be entitled "Neanderthal and Cro-Magnon: How did They Interact and What Happened When They did?" Fagan devotes almost half the book to facts and speculations concerning Cro-Magnon and Neanderthal interaction, and suggests three hypotheses: (1) Cro-Magnon violently exterminated Neanderthals; (2) Neadterthals died out for reasons relatively unrelated to Cro-Magnon; and (3) Cro-Magnon inadvertently led to Neaderthal Extinction by outcompeting for habitat and food supply. He comes down in favor of "3," and he has a good argument. Cerntain (1) has to be suspect. Cro-Magnon and Neaderthaler co-existed for over 15,000 years -- three times the span of recorded history. What modern human populations have ever co-existed anywhere near that long without exterminating, dominating, or interbreeding? Moreoever, there is exactly one Neaderthaler skeleton showing any sign of interpersonal violence, and these remains may have predated Cro-Magnon habitation.

Where I have a problem with Fagan is in his fictionalized scenario of a Cro-Magnon man noticing Neanderthalers out of the corner of his eye, but concluding that there were not as many such sightings as there used to be years ago. Put another way, Fagan is suggesting that Neaderthaler was gradually dying out and Cro-Magnons would be in a position to notice the decline. This is the fallacy of compressed time. There may never have been over 15,000 breeding Neaderthalers. If there were one less of them every year since 45,000 B.C., who would notice? Over a 15,000 year span, the Neanderthaler population could grow or shrink fifty times or more relative to the Cro-Magnon population, and what modern archeologist could conclude from the paltry fossil record (500 Neaderthaler skeletal remains since 250,000 years of Neanderthaler existence -- less than 1 per century; what can this demonstrate about Neaderthaler demographics?) The real question is not if or how Cro-Magnon out-competed or exterminated Neaderthal, but how they managed to co-exist as long as they did.

All in all, a very fine book. But its attempted reconstruction of Cro-Magnon -- Neaderthal interrelations just does not make sense to me at crucial junctures.

An upate: Since I wrote this review, scientists appear to have discovered that there are a fair number of Neanderthal genes in modern humans -- i.e. that Neanderthalers interbred with homo sapiens sapiens. Obviously, Fagan could lnot have known about this when he wrote his book, and this finding might change everything. Right now, it raises more questions than it answers. For example, our Neanderthaler genes appear to predate the movement of Cro-Magnons into Europe, and perhaps predate the development of fully modern minds in homo sapiens. If homo sapiens and homo neandertalis could interbreed, why did they not do so (in any numbers, at least) in Europe? Did Neanderthals and homo sapiens become incompatible? Is there a relationship between the development of modern intelligence and the decline in interbreeding? Did Neanderthalers in some sense "devolve" from their Middle Eastern forebears? Are the Neanderthal genes to be found only in the European genome or are they common to all homo sapiens? If so, how did they spread so uniformly? We have some idea of the percentage of Neanderthal genes in Cro-Magnons. What is the percentage of homo sapiens genes in Neanderthalers, if we know?

I have read a number of books by this author and I would classify this as one of his better ones. He starts by discussing the Neanderthals and how they differed from the eventual newcomers: the early modern humans - homo sapiens - also known as Cro-Magnons. He then recounts the evolution of the latter, our ancient ancestors, mainly during the millennia of the last glaciation and a bit later. In so doing, he addresses many important issues in their evolution, including: their travels and migrations, possible interactions with the Neanderthals, their social lives, possible spiritual thought, their diet, the evolution of their weaponry, their hunting tactics, and more, all this before a backdrop of changing climate, changing landscape and changing flora and fauna.

The prose is clear, friendly, very authoritative, detailed and quite accessible. From my perspective, I would not call this book a page-turner but there are several engaging passages amidst the many lengthy descriptions of the Cro-Magnons' lives and times. One cannot read this work without coming back much better informed about these ancient peoples.

With plenty of useful diagrams, several informative sidebars and sixteen colour plates, this book should appeal to anyone with an interest in our early human ancestors - in particular, what we do know about them, what we can guess and what we can never know. Stone Age archaeology enthusiasts should also find this book particularly fascinating.

For lay readers with an interest in human origins, this book is an eminently readable, workmanlike overview of the period between about 150,000 and 12,000 years ago, a timeframe that encompasses the exodus of human and near-humans from Africa to colonize the rest of the world, the extinction of the Neanderthals, and the success of their Cro-Magnon successors, also known as Homo sapiens or modern humans (that is, us).

Fagan does a nice job of synthesizing and distilling research from a wide range of fields such as archaeology, anthropology, vulcanology, and other specialized avenues of inquiry that help fill out our scant knowledge about this time period. I particularly appreciated the way Fagan draws on our knowledge about the lifeways of modern Arctic peoples to extrapolate insights into the behavior of our distant ancestors.

The book is illustrated, though not generously; a couple of the images were new to me and really added something to the mix, but for the most part the choice of illustrations was uninspired and, for readers with some prior familiarity to the subject, downright stale and insipid. An unfortunate missed opportunity. As noted by another reviewer, the editing of the book was somewhat slipshod and this seems to have hit captions to the illustrations the hardest (not a big deal).

I thought Fagan did very well in discussing the Cro-Magnons. Had he limited himself to this area I would rate the book more highly. Where I feel he falls short is in his treatment of the Neanderthals. It's an important point, because modern humans and Neanderthals co-existed side by side for thousands of years before the latter vanished, and the circumstances of the Neanderthals' extinction is one of the great scientific and (pre)historical mysteries yet to be unravelled. The latest DNA research indicates we "moderns" carry around 4% Neanderthal DNA (a finding too recent to be included in the book). Fagan seems much less sure of himself here. He flip flops between portraying Neanderthals as vastly inferior bumbling sub-humans and dynamic, competant humans not too different from ourselves, betraying what I take to be a lack of real familiarity or interest in the subject.

Fagan, like so many scientists of the past, seems hell bent on separating modern humans from everyone and everything else, extolling our amazing powers of imagination and abstract thought and denying these qualities (along with speech) to the Neanderthals on little or no evidence. Maybe he left out critical evidence, or maybe I missed it in my reading, but the evidence Fagan did present concerning speech seemed to indicate very strongly to me that the Neanderthals could very well have had fluent speech--the exact opposite conclusion to that reached by Fagan. He glosses over evidence that the Neanderthals did indeed show a capacity for symbolic / abstract thought and behavior in order to strengthen his main point, which is that modern humans were somehow fundamentally different and vastly superior to their neighbors. It smacks distastefully of the racism and xenophobia that continues to poison human relations. Or of the so-called experts who told us humans are unique in having language (a discredited view, animals clearly have their own languages), or using tools (also disproved through direct observations), or that small brains can't harbor complex intelligence (an idea blown to smithereens by the discovery of the tiny tool-making "hobbits" of Flores Island recently). I could go on and on. The point is I felt Fagan really lets his readers down on this front.

Still, all in all a good read for those interested in this underappreciated topic.

Brian Fagan begins his investigation of Ice Age peoples with the Neanderthals, whom he says were extant in Europe for 200,000 years before the Cro-Magnons pushed them out.

Most of Fagan's book discusses various took kits. There just isn't much else left, other than cave art and reindeer bones. The Neanderthals never advance beyond their long spears. They never developed a spear thrower and had to sneak up on their prey, going so far as to jump on the backs of the larger animals to spear them in conjunction with a fellow hunter. Fagan also maintains the Neanderthals were much more adept than the cartoonists portray them. He's also positive the Cro-Magnons and their cousins did not mate (although recent scientific evidence seems to indicate they did).

By 70,000 years ago the Neanderthals were gone. Fagan doesn't know whether the Cro-Magnons exterminated them or they simply couldn't compete. He's pretty sure it wasn't the Ice Age that did it, since they'd dealt with it successfully before.

Fagan points to four different eras of Cro-Magnon development based on their tool kits: the Aurignacians, The Gravettians, The Solutreans, and the Magdalenians. According to Fagan, they were all really "thin on the ground," and their era came to an end (if it ever really did) when the ice receded, population increased, and people took up farming. The difference between the four cultures seems to be increasingly smaller spear heads and the use of bone and reindeer horns as projectiles. He's also almost certain the Magdalenians had the bow and arrow. Fagan talks extensively about the Cro-Magnon Swiss Army knife, a core rock that stone knappers carried to chip off various weapons and tools. They could replace a broken spear tip in seconds. He also discusses hunting strategies. The Cro-Magnons tried to mire their prey in the mud or catch them crossing a stream, or if it was horses they were hunting, drive them into box canyons and slaughter them there. They also acquired much of the food they needed for the long Ice Age winters during salmon runs which they were adept at spearing.

Perhaps the most interesting part of the book for me, was the discovery of a 26,000-year-old grave containing a man and two young men buried head-to-head. The Sungir people were discovered in Northern Russia. They wore necklaces, brooches and bracelets with over 13,000 mammoth ivory beads on strings. The older man wore a beaded cap and what looked to be a richly decorated tunic. Tests indicate that each bead would have required at least an hour to make, an investment of 3,000 man hours in the older man's jewelry. As I said earlier the Cro-Magnons were "thin on the ground," which meant they traveled as small bands, but these "riches" seem to imply a hierarchal society, only 20,000 years after our ancestors left Africa.